Daniel Farke on Leeds United’s difficult backdrop and issues update on late injury at Cardiff City — YEP 13/1/24
By Graham Smyth
The Whites enjoyed one of the most comfortable afternoons of
the season against an insipid home side, who rarely troubled Illan Meslier in
the visitors’ goal. A close-range effort on 13 minutes from Patrick Bamford
would have been enough for Leeds, but they added emphasis to the scoreline with
a second from Daniel James and Georginio Rutter’s late third. In between each
of the goals there were chances to heap further humiliation on a Bluebirds team
who were booed off at the interval, but the woodwork denied both James and
Summerville, the latter stroking a second half penalty against the foot of Jak
Alnwick’s post.
Their level of control left Farke purring. “For me it was
our most mature performance of the whole season,” he said. “We had some
electrifying performances in home games but in an away game, Cardif is always a
difficult place to go, before the game they were ninth and eyeing the top six,
to be so in control, third clean sheet in a row by the way, overall I'm pretty
happy. We kept them totally quiet in their possession and dominated the ball in
exactly the right manner. Could and should have probably scored a few more but
the win was never in doubt and I was particularly pleased with the control.”
The departures of Djed Spence and Luke Ayling, along with
injuries to Pascal Struijk and Liam Cooper, have put a little more on the plate
of Farke’s fit and available defensive players but he’s delighted with how
they’ve coped. He said: “Many, many good individual performances. I have to
give big, big compliments to my lads. I would never speak about this after a
bad result but the situation right now with some outgoings and injuries,
there's not unbelievable competition on the training ground. We have trained
all week with 16 or 17, there was not even a choice, everyone who was fit and
available was travelling with us. A few had to play in a [different] position -
Ethan has played many times at centre-back but not for us in recent months and
what he has shown is outstanding. I like the mentality. I criticised them last
away games, after setbacks, penalties denied, red cards and we found it
difficult to grind out a result. Today we missed a few chances, didn't get a
penalty, missed a penalty but we were on it and showed resilience and a mature
performance.”
Sam Byram made his return from injury just in the nick of
time, with Junior Firpo picking up a niggle late on and limping off. Farke
believes it was a minor issue for a player who has been growing in confidence
at left-back after returning from previous fitness problems. “It was a dead
leg, he got hit in the first half and the longer it went on the more problems
he had, but not a big problem,” said the manager. “I'm pleased he got more
minutes, we see him growing game to game. Our style definitely suits him. You
have to be rock solid at defending at full-back, even if you're offensive
minded and it's important he grows in relation to this and he's doing it. It
was important to control the wide positions, they work with many crosses and
set-pieces, so to be rock solid was crucial. It was probably his most balanced
performance so far.”